VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Postal III

INTRO: Hey, are you in the mood for some outdated insanity? Well, you might remember Postal from a few years back..fifteen or so (yes, it's been made into a Uwe Boll movie..one of his most controversial, in fact.

Anyhoo, this one is the newest gorefest of a game that promises to cross lines and disgust you while it does so. The problem is that the game is absolutely no fun to play and feels utterly unfinished.

GAMEPLAY:

You don't need to follow the plot because it's bizarre and nonsensical. You know you're postal dude and you gots to get your cash and save your arse. The missions are all over the place and really don't shy away from any subjects. Yes, this is a game where you will simply start off by sucking up splooge-rags from a porn shop and then shoot them at a bunch of protesting mothers until they puke. This is a game that features a main character that can piss on anything he wants, at any time. Yeah, for real.

You'll even get the chance to pick up cats infested with aids. Did I mention that they're the number one source of meat for a restaurant? Yeah, they are. And don't get me wrong, this game knows every bit about how stupid it is. I know that's weird, but it's true. The main character literally quotes other games that are better. I mean, he names GTA 3, for one. The game will even tease you about horrible AI- I've never seen anything like it. The game does try to give you "choices" by letting you choose different pathways through missions but from what I've seen, they basically end up the same way. There are no real consequences, and you still end up massacring people, even if you choose the more 'moral' path. The only real difference from the outset is the weapon you're killing people with.

Yes, you can shoot, melee and grenade (and even ignite dudes with gas..but that doesn't work well) but this isn't really impressive. Shooting is alright if there's lots of space to do it but you could get stuck in the play field, quite literally. Melee combat is a mess and really causes you to miss a lot. This includes when an enemy is right in front of you. Anyway, it's just mission after mission for our Postal Dude (yeah, that's his name) as he tries to tie down a real job and keeps going after these stupid temp positions. You will have to kill bad guys and the game gives you objectives that are really simple and number based (kill this many dudes, steal this many vehicles, etc). The levels are brief and you can't really roam around like you might think.

Oh and let me tell you about bugs! There are bugs a-plenty in this mess of a game. You'll hear sound effects in all kinds of places that don't belong (birds indoors, video games outside). Forget about the escort missions because they're excruciating with the AI. There's all kinds of crashes through the game- it crashed a lot. The game loads very slowly, I've had my controls reverse themselves, gotten weird technical messages after each game loads and more. I'm going to have to cut this one short. Besides being lame, dated, unfunny and extremely repetitive and linear, this game is beyond broken. Some people love Postal 2, but if this one is any indication I'm going to be staying far, far away from this serious forever. This may actually be one of the worst games I've ever reviewed, even if you can kill people with a fart gun.

Gameplay: 3/10

GRAPHICS:

This isn't an overly pretty game. Characters move stiffly, animations are poor, atmosphere is repetitive. There's hilariously bad cutscenes that are no better. This looks more or less like a mid-grade PS2 game.

Graphics: 5/10

AUDIO:

Ugh, the sound is brutal too. Really, really repetitive one-liners wear themselves out extremely fast, and the music starts and stops fitfully as the game goes on. It's not a funny game, and doesn't sound very good either.

Audio: 4/10

FINAL VERDICT:

The wait time for this game has been over eight YEARS, and that's shocking. It tries to push the envelope but falls flat on its face. That'd make for a crappy game anyway, but this is technically broken. I'm sorry lovers of crude humor, sex and violence- there has to be a better way to enjoy yourselves than this. Avoid this like the plague..even though you get to beat the hell out of Uwe Boll in the game (for real!).